Fars reports the launch was on the Pishgam “explorer rocket,” but this is probably the wrong name. “Kavoshgar” is usually translated as “Explorer”, and all other previous suborbital launches in this effort were done with Kavoshgar rockets (see Table 1). This flight comes a bit earlier than expected, as Hamid Fazeli, director of the Iranian Space Agency, said previously the launch would take place during the ten days of festivities starting January 31 which will mark the 34th anniversary of Iran’s revolution.

A launch of the Simorgh would be a big next step. Simorgh is much larger rocket than Safir, similar to a two-stage version of North Korea’s Unha-2 launcher, with a mass of roughly 80 tons. That launcher would use a cluster of 4 Nodong engines for the first stage. It has yet to be tested.

The Kavoshgar is yet smaller than the Safir. Development of the Kavoshgar rocket itself does little to further Iran’s ability to field a long-range ballistic missile. While some concern has been expressed that Iran will improve its abilities to produce heat shielding (important both for protecting a monkey and a warhead as they return through the atmosphere), the speeds at which a biocapsule returning from a 120 km altitude and an ICBM-launched warhead travel through the atmosphere are significantly different, and the heating goes as the cube of the speed. Specifically, the speed characteristic of a suborbital trajectory such as the one the Pishgam took would be around 2 km/s; an ICBM-launched warhead will re-enter at around 7 km/s, and so a warhead would require shielding against more than 40 times greater heat load than the Pishgam.

It may be that the launch may have not been delayed, but that Iran did in fact attempt a launch and did not succeed. The October 1, 2012 Jane’s Intelligence Review provided an analysis of commercial satellite imagery that show a prepared launch site (without launcher) in May, and the same site with blast marks in June they say look similar to the blast marks from the Omid, Rasad, and Navid satellite launches. Jane’s concludes that the launch attempt failed. Without more information, it’s hard to tell if the Fajr was the payload and if it was destroyed.

It is curious that Iran still lists the Fajr in its roster of upcoming launches. The loss of that particular satellite may not be a setback, as Iran has fielded many satellites of similar mass from its universities and defense contractors, and should have an appropriately sized payload for any of its upcoming launches on the Safir or Simorgh. It also may have built or could build multiples of an important one like Fajr. However, the launch failure has not been widely discussed, except in specialist communities.

In fact, this may not be the only recent launch failure. Jane’s Defence Weekly reported on November 21, 2012, that a yet more catastrophic launch failure may have happened in September 2012, though again no official Iranian statement was made. Jane’s looked at DigitalGlobe satellite imagery from late September that shows final preparations being made at the Semnan launch pad for what is assumed to be a Safir launch. (Though the launcher itself is not clearly visible, this pad is too small to launch the Simorgh and the single-stage, suborbital Kavoshgar rocket is smaller and road-mobile, and would not need the umbilical tower shown.) The article provides a satellite photograph of the site taken October 25, 2012, showing a great deal of damage to the site, including to the tower.

What next?

The question, then, is what will we see in the next weeks and months? Although, reports that Iran will attempt another orbital launch before the end of March conflict in the details, the Safir’s launch pad must be repaired before any launches can take place, and in November 2012, Jane’s estimates that the new facility capable of handling a Simorgh launch is 12-18 months away.

Iran has been ambitious in its program and continues to invest resources into developing a broad space program. The next couple of months will hopefully provide some insight on what Iran’s priorities and progress.

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